Saturday. Breakfast and off to Unst

On Saturday morning we were invited to breakfast at some friends. Steve knew Andrew from University, and from a three week stint covering for another doctor in Lerwick about 14 years ago.
Andrew is now a part time General Practitioner in Walls on the western mainland of Shetland and they have a beautiful home located on a bay looking south. It was originally a croft house that they used for weekends and vacations. There was no running water and no electricity. It is at the end of a gravel road about 3 miles from Walls. Over 17 years they have improved and added to the house (including getting water from the village, and electricity. Andrew has shown his carpentry skills and built most of the shelving and doors from materials recycled from abandoned churches and other buildings locally.
Andrew will be a participant in one of the squads at Up Helly A on Tuesday. It is an honor to be invited to a squad and you would have to be a permanent Shetland resident for at least five years to be considered. We have no idea what his squad’s costume is this year as it is a closely guarded secret. Last year they were penguins, which may give you some indication of what to expect!
Andrew is a quiet almost shy person so the contrast is intriguing.
Susan is a Community Nurse and with a combination of their professions and the small population they are well known and well liked in the community.
One thing we discussed was Shetlanders approach to non native born residents.
We concluded that they were initially curious as to your background and pretty straightforward about asking, but once that was done you were left alone to follow your own life and rarely criticized. In other words what you do is your business and within bounds they were, and are perfectly happy for you to live your life without someone trying to tell you how to live it. I find that delightful and refreshing.
All this fun and good food meant that we were late leaving for our drive to Unst, but we caught the two o clock ferry from Toft on the mainland to Yell, the next island north. I was surprised that the ferry was both bigger and much fancier than I had imagined and much fancier than the one we took in Ireland across to Bere Island.
While waiting in the line (queue) to drive on to the ferry we met a patient of Alison’s Delano Jennings, and his friend Davy Hamar who were also driving up to Unst. Davy is a sea captain and now runs the tourist boat out to Muckle Flugga in the summers. It is known locally as “The Flugga”. More about The Flugga in a later post. We are planning to hike there tomorrow.
Delano is a big guy with a big gray beard (see photos). He was born in the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic, roughly as far south as we are north (sixty degrees) He left there before the war with Argentina in 1982 and has lived on Shetland since then. We shared some hot chocolate (from a machine) during the passage in a very comfortable lounge.
After docking we headed across the island of Yell to the next ferry that gets us on to Unst. A quick crossing to Unst and then only about 15 minutes to the house we are staying at in Westbay. More about that in a separate post. Basic house and house approach pictures shown, but more detail to come.
Enjoy

Friday..More

On the road to Vementry this afternoon we passed the settlement of Twatt. Not wishing to pass up an opportunity we stopped by the sign and took four photos. Two of Steve Grey hat) and two of me, (in my green Jen special hat).

We invite comments and votes on who is the best Pratt in a Hat at Twatt? (Ask any Brit for a translation). Pathetic I know for a couple of guys who should know better. Oh well. It is who we are.  I am sideways and Steve is correctly oriented!!

My apologies that some images are sideways. I am still trying to figure out how to cure this, with no success so far 

Friday. Roaming on Shetland mainland

Sorry for the long delay in the posts but we have been in remote places without access to the internet, I will get caught up with a few posts in the next couple of days. I am also going to post a link to Snapfish for additional photos should you be interested.

It blew again all last night and this morning so far. As I said in the “quick post” all the ferry service has been cancelled for the next 3 days so from the point of view

of being here for Up Helly A. we made a good choice. It remains to be seen if some of the musicians who were scheduled actually make it.

Steve and I braved the elements and went for a drive to Sandness which is about as far west as you can go on the mainland. It consists of maybe 20 houses, all spread out, a village hall, Post Office/store and a factory that knits woolen products, Jamison Woolens.

There was a sign that visitors were welcome and we went in. They said we were welcome to “wander around and ask anyone we saw any questions. Also “Please do not touch anything that looks dangerous or is moving”. That appeared to be the extent of the Safety Briefing! Needless to say we complied. They make scarves, sweaters and other articles in traditional weaves. We saw several boxes marked for “Simply Shetland” a store in Washington state as well as other destinations like Tokyo. It looks like they employ about 10-12 people and most of the machinery was likely recycled from other mills that have closed. Some machines seemed to run on punch card readers rather than computer controlled.

We drove around on mostly single lane roads. The way it works is that there are designated “Passing Places” about 100 yards apart on more frequently traveled roads and maybe 300 yards on less traveled roads. Who ever is nearest the passing place pulls over and the car coming the other way passes with a customary wave, or at night a toot on the horn. All very courteous and civilized!

The roads are really in excellent shape all across the islands and places I have been to so far. The edges are marked in white (on the single lane roads there is no centerline!) and there are posts on the sides on curves and low places to mark the road in the snow.

Steve is keen to see some otters, and we hope we can achieve this on Unst over the weekend.

We saw some seals today in one of the harbors and counted nine in one place. The best photo I got is pathetic and only shows three. They are curious creatures and stick their heads up and then dive and come up in a slightly different location, having told their mates that there is something of interest on an otherwise (otterwise?) dull boring day in the life of a seal!

We are off out this evening to Lerwick for dinner at an Indian restaurant. I do not know the name but Alison took care of the owner’s wife recently. We are also going to the “Ghurka Kitchen” on Monday I think. It is Nepalese and Indian food. Who would have thought it in Shetland .